March 14, 2008 — The national nonprofit Home Safety Council (HSC) brought its award-winning traveling home safety exhibit, The Great Safety Adventure, to Andre' Elementary School on Friday.

The Great Safety Adventure is roughly the size of a small house and unfolds from a semi-tractor trailer truck to form a 1,000-square-foot animated home. A team of trained home safety experts called “Safety Rangers” and HSC mascot Rover the Home Safety Hound led the presentation that educated Andre ' students about home safety and injury prevention.

The home replica features a 20-foot entranceway, living room, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. There is also a giant “window” where the kids can look out to the backyard. Once inside, the exhibit teaches hands-on home safety lessons to help prevent the five leading causes of home injury: falls, poisoning, fires and burns, choking and suffocation and drowning.

Andre' students were equipped with flashlights and led on a room-by-room tour of the interactive home and taught to shine their lights and recite the phrase “Code Red Rover, Grown Up Come Over” when they spot a home danger. The phrase emphasizes to children the importance of calling a grown-up over to help correct home hazards rather than try to fix the problem themselves.

“As a principal and as a mom I was thrilled that The Great Safety Adventure was coming to Andre' to teach our children in a very interactive, fun way about the dangers that are lurking in their homes and community,” said Marilyn Fredell, Andre' principal. “More and more of our kids today are left home alone, even if it’s just for little snippets of time. Our children have to be very prepared for every situation.”

Great Safety Adventure Safety Ranger Joe Straughan teaches Andre' Elementary School students how to check a door for heat in the event of a potential house fire.

GSA Safety Ranger Joe Straughan and mascot Rover the Home Safety Hound distribute Safety Ranger badges to Andre' fourth-grade students Toni Cedillo, left, and Donell Dunn, as principal Marilyn Fredell looks on.

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